The US-China trade war ratcheted up yet again on Friday, with Beijing unveiling a new round of retaliatory tariffs on about $75 billion worth of US goods.
China will place tariffs of 5% or 10% on US imports starting on September 1st, according to a statement posted by China’s Finance Ministry on Friday.
The Ministry also announced plans to resume tariffs on US imports of automobiles and automobile parts. The tariffs would be 25% or 5%, and would take effect on December 15th.
Last week, China said it would take countermeasures after the United States announced it would impose 10% tariffs on Chinese imports worth $300 billion.
The United States postponed the implementation of about half of those tariffs, which will cover several categories of Chinese-made consumer goods, until December. They had been due to take effect in September.
The move comes amid indications the ongoing trade war is having an impact on the world’s two largest economies. Industrial production in China — an important indicator for the country’s economy — grew just 4.8% in July compared to a year earlier, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. That’s the worst growth for that sector in 17 years.
American factories are also contracting for the first time in a decade and red lights are flashing in the bond market, where the yield curve has inverted. Such inversions, where the 10-year Treasury yield dips below the two-year Treasury rate, are historic predictors of a coming recession.